As described in Japanese Patent Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 10-167115, there is a conventional vehicle body structure in which a body side outer 1 is divided by a front side body side outer 2 and a rear fender 3 into front and back parts, and a center pillar outer 9 of the rear fender 3 is fitted on a center pillar reinforce 8 of the front side body side outer 2 to form an integrated structure. In this vehicle body structure, the front side body side outer 2 and the rear fender 3 are formed by a steel sheet having different plate thicknesses and made of different materials. For example, the front side body side outer 2 is formed by a thick and high-strength steel sheet to ensure impact resistance and the rear fender 3 is formed by a thin steel sheet to reduce the weight.
According to the above conventional vehicle body structure, when the center pillar is designed to be inclined backward and upward in accordance with a kick-up section which is inclined upward and backward from a rear end of a vehicle body floor, there is a problem of shortage of strength and rigidity if there is no area for connecting a lower end of the rear fender. That is, if there is no area for connecting the lower end of the rear fender to the lower area of the inclined part of the center pillar, there is a problem of shortage of strength and rigidity since the rear fender is formed by a thin plate in order to reduce the weight. As a result, providing a jack-up part and a component mounting section on the lower end of the rear fender also becomes difficult. An attempt has been made to overcome those problems. For example, an extension section which is downwardly extended from the inclined part of the center pillar may be integrally formed with the front side body side outer. However, this poses a problem that formability is deteriorated and weight is increased due to increased surface area since the front side body side outer is formed by a thick and high-strength steel sheet.